CYNICS said 2024’s television could only get worse after it started with ITV’s landmark drama Mr Bates Vs The Post Office. But you know the funny thing?
They were absolutely right.
Two weeks after the brilliant Toby Jones series finished, Love Island All Stars was filling the same slot and a pattern had been established for this rollercoaster TV year.
For every Clarkson’s Farm, there was a Dating Naked. For every Freddie Flintoff’s Field Of Dreams, an Olivia Attwood’s Bad Boyfriends.
And for every Sharron Davies, who spoke out about the obscenity of biological men beating up women at the Olympics, there were half a dozen Clare Baldings at the BBC who stared at their feet and said nothing.
In between times, Gladiators made a triumphant return, Phillip Schofield gave self-pity a bad name on Cast Away, Chris McCausland saved Strictly, the art of the sitcom died with the end of Curb Your Enthusiasm and the BBC’s obsession with drag acts reached its bloody conclusion with Smoggie Queens.
With awards for the following:
BEST QUIZ SHOW ANSWER 2024: The Chase, Bradley Walsh: “Which leader was exiled to islands in the Mediterranean and South Atlantic?” Sophie: “Tony Blair.”
If only, if only, if only.
BEST SHOW: Any of the following could’ve won, or deserve a namecheck: Mr Bates Vs The Post Office, Industry, Clarkson’s Farm, Helmand: Tour Of Duty, Freddie Flintoff’s Field Of Dreams, Slow Horses, The Wrong Man: 17 Years Behind Bars, Enemy In The Woods, Wolf Hall, BBC1’s faithful and brilliant Gladiators reboot, Ludwig, Michael McIntyre’s Big Show, Hell Jumper, Shogun and Gavin & Stacey.
But it’s the size of the gap left by Larry David’s sitcom Curb Your Enthusiasm, after its 12th and final series, that sets it apart from everything else.
With a couple of honourable exceptions on the streaming channels, such as Ricky Gervais and Dave Chappelle, there is no mainstream comedian now who dares to say the unsayable and I will miss this show for ever.
WORST SHOW: Dishonourable mentions for Olivia Attwood’s Bad Boyfriends, Buying London, Piglets, Rylan’s Hot Mess Summer, Gino And Fred: Emission Impossible, BBC1’s criminally irresponsible documentary The Chris Kaba Shooting, The Pet Psychic, Josh Must Win, Have I Got News For You, The Last Leg, Parents’ Evening, The Fortune Hotel, Red Eye, Love Island All Stars, Football Focus, The Way, with Michael Sheen, C4’s zombie disaster Generation Z and BBC1 thriller Nightsleeper.
None were as bad, though, as BBC3’s Smoggie Queens, a sitcom so witless, repellent and woke I’m certain the drag-fixated Beeb will give it at least another three series.
BEST LIVE TV MOMENT: I greatly enjoyed Israel briefly leapfrogging everyone and getting 12 from Britain at the Eurovision Song Contest, when the public vote was opened, and also Stephen Mulhern inviting Ricky Hatton to “hit me,” at Dancing On Ice.
Which he did, very very hard. But neither was quite as funny as the meltdown Emily Maitlis, Susanna Reid, Ed Balls and the rest of Britain’s breakfast TV luvvies suffered in the early hours of November 6, when Donald Trump won the US election.
With the killer line belonging to GMB work experience lad Noel Phillips, at Kamala Harris’s “victory party”. “The mood, despite there being nobody here, is one of hope.”
WORST LIVE TV MOMENT: Saturday Kitchen Live’s Pride special “in honour of the LGBTQI+ community” was a cult meeting so terrified of offending the alphabet people it cancelled the usual “heaven or hell” recipe feature in case anyone got the impression there was any negative side to the event.
But it was still less sinister and woke than the $130million Olympic Games’ opening ceremony with its headless women, Last Supper fat lass, environmental bleats and musical segment in honour of the EU.
MOST GRIEVOUSLY MISLEADING TITLE: C5’s Sue Perkins: Lost In Alaska.
BEST DRAMA: The mesmerising Wolf Hall, Slow Horses, Industry, Shogun and Until I Kill You may all have been technically better, but none of them had the same emotional impact as Mr Bates Vs The Post Office, which led to questions in Parliament, new legislation and King Charles forcing former Post Office boss Paula Vennells to return her CBE for “bringing the honours system into disrepute”.
Yet still the newly knighted Sir Alan Bates hasn’t received any compensation. Extraordinary.
WORST DRAMA: It would take a special kind of disaster to beat BBC1’s Nightsleeper, which seemed to be heavily based on Thomas The Tank Engine’s Rusty And The Boulder episode. But Michael Sheen’s utterly deranged drama The Way, about a left-wing Welsh workers’ uprising, was that special kind of disaster.
It featured a Masonic sex orgy, a talking teddy bear and was very much like the Two Ronnies’ old Worm That Turned sketch with Diana Dors, but took itself incredibly seriously. Most chillingly, it was “produced with the support of the Welsh Government”. Get out now, my Welsh friends. Get out while you still can.
BEST OLYMPIC NAME: Li Shiting in the Chinese kayak, which the IOC urgently needs to stamp out.
COCK-EYED OPTIMIST OF THE YEAR: Alleged political satirist Adam Hills, the day after the General Election, proudly declaring: “Keir Starmer has given us all a promise of hope.”
And how’s that working out for you, Adam?
WORST TALENT SHOW: Made In Korea: The K-Pop Experience. Vocal coach Jin Young-Jan teamed up with choreographers Seung Hyun Yu and Do Yun Wun to polish a British boyband before a performance for Hee Jun Yoon. Only one problem. Kun Fuh-Kin Sing.
WORST LOVE SCENE: Gary Neville with Keir Starmer before the England v Spain Euro final. Get a room, guys.
HEALTH AND SAFETY WARNING OF THE YEAR: Amazon Prime’s screenings of Holocaust film Zone Of Interest, which arrived with a warning it contains: “Alcohol use and smoking.” ’Cos that’s the eternal worry isn’t it. A death camp commandant exceeds his 14 units while committing genocide.
ABOUT-TURN OF 2024: One week in March, The Last Leg host Adam Hills was joking about the Princess of Wales’ death and fanning the flames of the Photoshopping controversy by saying: “I’ve never seen our office as excited as it was by this story.”
The next, Kate had announced she had cancer and Adam Hills was claiming: “We watched the news together, as a production team, and it’s fair to say a lot of people were really emotional. Our thoughts go out to the Princess and her family.” Too late, Adam.
OLYMPIC FILTH GOLD MEDAL: Weightlifting, Jono Farr: “Duangaksorn Chaidee made us sweat in the snatch, she made us sweat in the clean, it took a while to get into position, but that jerk was very powerful.”
THE AIR MILES ENVIRONMENTAL AWARD 2024: Serial Panorama p**s- taker Richard Bilton, who flew from Iceland to the Alps to Sydney to the Barrier Reef to Southern Carolina to California and back again to Britain, via Arizona, to answer the question Can Scientists Save The World? Only to tell us: “Cutting carbon use is vital.”
You first, Richard.
OLYMPIC HEROES AWARD: While others, like Clare Balding, avoided the destruction of female sport issue and the grotesque spectacle of men taking part in women’s boxing, other BBC employees didn’t cower.
With special mentions for Nicola Adams, Matthew Pinsent and the supremely brave Sharron Davies, who accused the IOC of “Legalising beating up females.”
She deserves a damehood for services to women’s sport.
WORST REALITY/TALENT SHOW CONTESTANT: Just ahead of Dean McCullough from I’m a Celebrity, Joey Essex and the entire cast of Love Island and Dating Naked?
All- singing, all-dancing celebrity flasher John Barrowman, who had one shot at redemption on Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins, but quit just 32 minutes after the contestants arrived at their New Zealand base.
GASLIGHTER OF THE YEAR: Dating Naked, the Paramount+ channel: “Strict hygiene and dignity protocols were in place during filming.”
- Column returns January 10.
Dumbest quiz show answers
CELEBRITY Mastermind, Clive Myrie: “Which English naval captain lost his right arm in 1797 during an attack on the town of Santa Cruz on the island of Tenerife?”
John Whaite: “Captain Hook.”
Mastermind, Clive Myrie: “In the 1980s, Jocky Wilson, right, John Lowe and Keith Deller all won the world championship of what indoor sport?”
Emma: “Cycling.” The Weakest Link, Romesh Ranganathan: “In geology, the White Cliffs of Dover are principally formed out of what substance, chalk or cheese?”
Helen Flanagan: “Cheese.”
The Finish Line, Roman Kemp: “Which late football manager was known as Cloughie?”
Emily: “Sir Alex Ferguson.”
And Romesh: “In sport, the US tennis player who won all four grand slams in the 1990s and an Olympic gold medal is Andre who?”
Vicky Hawkesworth: “The Giant.”
Best actor
A BLANKET finish between Gary Oldman (Slow Horses), Jessica Gunning (Baby Reindeer), Toby Jones (Mr Bates Vs The Post Office), Lesley Manville (Sherwood), Marisa Abela (Industry), Anna Maxwell Martin (Until I Kill You) and my favourite, mesmerising Mark Rylance, who wasted not a single gesture in Wolf Hall: The Mirror And The Light.
Worst actor
THE Day Of The Jackal’s Lashana “Bianca” Lynch was narrowly beaten by Phillip Schofield for his performance in C5’s Cast Away and delivery of the line: “I’ve been chucked under the bus and I could drive the same bus over so many people.
“But I’m not that sort of person, I never have been.”
Ones that god away
THEY may well be works of TV genius but, without apology, I just didn’t get the appeal of The Traitors (it’s a game of blink murder), Bridgerton or Rivals, which was the Disney+ channel’s ironically s**t adaptation of the Jilly Cooper novel, without the “ironically” bit.
Longest career suicide
Joey Essex, who spent 55 days on Love Island thoroughly convincing us that, far from being just an amiable fool, he is in fact a short-tempered, pot-stirring opportunist with a nasty passive-aggressive manner and an incredibly high opinion of himself.
BEST REALITY/TALENT SHOW CONTESTANT
Strictly Come Dancing’s Chris McCausland, obviously
Best subtitle for the deaf
With thanks to chef Tony Singh who got Carol Vorderman to cook lamb pie, and the subtitler who attached these words just below her: “It’s mutton. OK.” Fine with me.
PSYCHIC PREDICTION OF THE YEAR
Channel 5 News, July 12, asparagus-flinging psychic Jemima Packington: “I see a K for Kane, an E for England. It’s coming home.
Best job application
NO candidates from Scotland, Northern Ireland or Wales on this year’s series of The Apprentice, but the ever “diverse and inclusive” BBC did pick a vile bigot called Doctor Asif Munaf, who denounced Zionism, on social media, as “a Godless Satanic cult.” Asif, you’re so fired.
Worst collaboration
BBC2’s Boybands Forever concluding with the cheerful news “911 have had a massive hit with Vietnamese superstar Duc Phuc,” while the rest of us were mourning the fact he didn’t team up with Gary Barlow, Howard Donald and Mark Owen and give the world Phuc That.
THE “DR LIVINGSTONE, I PRESUME” AWARD
The Big Show, its Midnight Game Show segment, Michael McIntyre to Bradley Walsh: “Please welcome, Fanny Chmelar.”
Lookalikes of the year
